Director's Notes - Episode 232: “A Car Crash on Buellton Avenue”

Like many episodes, this one started with a phrase that seemed interesting to me. "A car crash on Buellton Avenue". I started describing that car crash, unsure what the story would be, but knowing if I poked around enough, I would find it. And after writing a couple of the car crash sections, I started to see the shape of the story, understand the loop I was creating for the poor man at its center.

Buellton is from Buellton, CA, best known for being home of Pea Soup Andersons, a middling restaurant specializing in, you-guessed-it, split pea soup. The main thing about Pea Soup Andersons is their billboards, which start hundreds of miles away. "231 miles to Pea Soup Andersons" the billboards will say, along with their mascots, two hammer wielding chefs. I have only eaten at the restaurant a couple times, and it is not memorable, but a childhood of California road trips has burned the billboards into my mind.

Some other notes:

-I don't remember if I mentioned this last time, but Carlos's last name comes direct from the unproduced Night Vale tv pilot that Jeffrey and I wrote. The tv industry wants main characters to have last names, and so we put one into the script. We thought it was a fun nod to a big moment in Night Vale history.

-The All-You-Can-Eat Desert Buffet is based on a buffet restaurant located near where Jeffrey and I live in the Hudson Valley. It does indeed have a raw bar, which seems so wild for an all you can eat buffet. Also its google photos do feature a strangely high number of photos of upset children. Overall, the vibes at that place are terrible, and all through covid we joked about finally getting to go back to the [NAME REDACTED] Buffet. 

-Right now we are putting the finishing touches on our new live touring script. It tries something we've never tried before. Every live show, we try to find some new way to tell a story for a live audience. With Haunting, we wondered if it was possible to write a dance scene into a Night Vale show. This script tries something equally out of the box, that required bringing in a creative collaborator to help pull off, but I think it's going to be fun to see. 

Have a great last stretch of summer!

Joseph Fink